Thrustmaster, a world leader in interactive entertainment hardware and accessories, will be releasing its newest official Xbox 360 licensed controllers, offering unrivalled innovation and ultimate precision, to meet the requirements of the most demanding gamers.

The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has confirmed new keynotes and panelists for its Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. The Summit, now in its third year, takes place April 8 - 10, 2009 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.

For the first time, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems will sit down at one table to debate the future of the respective operating systems. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin will moderate the discussion, which will include Sam Ramji, Director of Platform Strategy, from Microsoft, and Ian Murdock, Vice President of Developer and Community Marketing at Sun.

Other agenda highlights at this year’s Summit include:
IDC Program Vice President, Systems Software, Al Gillen, will share new findings on operating system forecasts and talk about the impact of the economic downturn on the operating system market.

Edward Screven, Chief Corporate Architect at Oracle, has been confirmed to deliver the opening day keynote. Screven will talk about the company’s unique business model that has Linux at its core.

Host sponsor Intel will talk about the future of mobile Linux in its Moblin State of the Union keynote and demonstration, presented by Imad Sousou, Director of the Open Source Technology Center, Software and Services Group.

A panel on community contributions and participation will be presented with speakers that include Jono Bacon, community manager at Ubuntu; James Bottomley, kernel developer at Novell; Joe Brockmeier, community manager, openSUSE; Dan Frye, vice president, open systems development, IBM Systems and Technology Group; and Karsten Wade, Fedora Project.

An annual favorite, the Linux kernel panel will focus on what’s coming next. It will be moderated by LWN.net editor-in-chief Jon Corbet, and panelists will include the community’s leading maintainers Greg Kroah-Hartmann, Andrew Morton, Keith Packard and Ted Ts’o.

Sponsored by Intel Corporation and returning to San Francisco in 2009, the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is an exclusive, invitation-only gathering of the brightest minds in Linux, including core kernel developers, distribution maintainers, ISVs, end users, system vendors and other community organizations. It is the only conference designed to accelerate collaboration and encourage solutions by bringing together a true cross-section of leaders to meet face-to-face to tackle and solve the most pressing issues facing Linux today.

The Annual Collaboration Summit will be co-located with the CELF Embedded Linux Conference and the Linux Storage and Filesystem Workshop. For more information on the Linux Foundation’s Annual Collaboration Summit, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/e....

SoftBank Group companies SoftBank Mobile Corp. (“SoftBank Mobile”), Japan’s leading mobile operator, and Aldebaran Robotics SAS (“Aldebaran”), the world leader in humanoid robotics, announced the joint development of “Pepper”, the world’s first personal robot that can read emotions. Pepper, which incorporates variety of technologies and capabilities, will be commercially available in Japan from SoftBank Mobile in February 2015 for a base price of JPY 198,000* (2 108 $CAN).